North Korea complains to U.N. about film starring Rogen, Franco

[July 10, 2014]  UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - North Korea has complained to the United Nations about a film starring Seth Rogen and James Franco, accusing the United States of sponsoring terrorism and committing an act of war by allowing production of a movie about a plot to kill its leader, Kim Jong Un.

"The Interview" - due to be released later this year - is about an American television-show host and his producer who land an interview with Kim Jong Un, and are then recruited by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to assassinate the North Korean leader, according to Internet Movie Database (IMDb).

The letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon from North Korea's U.N. Ambassador Ja Song Nam, dated June 27 but made public this week, does not mention the name of the movie but talks about a plot that "involves insulting and assassinating the supreme leadership."

"To allow the production and distribution of such a film on the assassination of an incumbent head of a sovereign state should be regarded as the most undisguised sponsoring of terrorism as well as an act of war," Ja said.

"The United States authorities should take immediate and appropriate actions to ban the production and distribution of the aforementioned film; otherwise, it will be fully responsible for encouraging and sponsoring terrorism," he wrote.

Ja attached a June 25 story by the official KCNA news agency slamming the film with similar rhetoric.

Actor Rogen said on Twitter the same day: "People don't usually wanna kill me for one of my movies until after they've paid 12 bucks for it."

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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